The Helsinki District Court handed down one of its heaviest drug convictions on Wednesday when an Estonian man was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Estonian Meelis Öismaa, 33, was found guilty of five aggravated drug trafficking offences. During his several trips to Finland the man had brought a total of 17 kilos of amphetamines and thousands of ecstasy tablets into the country in the course of last year.
The maximum sentence would have been 13 years, but the court deducted two years, as Öismaa had voluntarily given information about his offences and thus helped to clear up the crime.
The man acted as a courier and had no real authority himself. Moreover, he did his last jobs after he and his family had been threatened.
When Öismaa was caught while he was doing his last job, close to ten kilos of drugs were found hidden in his car.
At the same time, three other drug dealers were sentenced to prison terms of various lengths. Two of them were serving time in the eastern wing of the Helsinki prison from where they ran their drug business. The third man had been released on probation.
While on leave from prison, one of the convicts was just passing a total of EUR 30,000 to Öismaa in payment for over nine kilos of amphetamine when police intervened and arrested them both in the car park of the Itäkeskus swimming pool in eastern Helsinki.
